Page 75 of Death Rydes Shotgun

Guilt instantly seeps in.

With everything going on—mainly Ryder murdering someone right in front of me—I completely forgot to call around about Blaire.

“Shit,” I breathe out, rubbing my temples.

Xander glances over, his tone laced with genuine concern. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” I look at Xander apologetically. “Excuse me real quick, I have to take this.”

I slide the blue button over, accepting the call and bringing the phone to my ear. “Mrs. Middleton? I am so, so sorry for not calling you back earlier⁠—”

Violent, ragged sobs burst through the speaker.

“Harmony…” Mrs. Middleton wails, her voice broken, hysterical, and unrecognizable. “Oh God, Harmony…”

It’s as if my blood stiffens, turning into a solid block of ice within me. “Mrs. Middleton? What’s wrong? Has Blaire been located?”

“She’s gone!” Mrs. Middleton screams into the phone, her breath catching in loud, suffocating gasps. “The police... they found her in the woods by the old lake... she’s been brutally murdered, Harmony! Somebody slaughtered my baby!”

My entire body goes dead numb.

The world stops spinning. The sound of the car engine, the swish of the windshield wipers, the rustle of my own breath—everything vanishes into an abyss of absolute, paralyzing horror.

“No…” I whisper, the word dying in my throat. “No, no, no…”

Before I can ask another question, the line goes completely dead, leaving only the dull tone of a dropped call echoing in my ear.

Xander notices the sudden, terrifying shift in my demeanor. “Harmony? Hey, what’s going on? Who was that? Is everything alright?”

I don’t answer him. I can’t answer him.

His voice sounds muffled, like he’s speaking to me from underwater.

His mouth is moving, I know he’s asking me questions, but my mind is spinning out of control in a dark, violent hurricane.

Ryder.

The name burns through my skull like acid.

He lied to me. He stood in that cabin, looking into my eyes with that dangerous, wicked grin, claiming he was innocent. But he did it. He killed Blaire. He butchered my best friend and left her body to rot in the mud. Just as Noah was left.

A sudden, hot surge of rage tears through the cold shock in my veins.

I’m almost angry at myself for getting away from him. I’m furious that I knocked out a cop and freed him from his chains, because now I can’t grab him by his throat and demand to know why he destroyed the only good thing I had left in this town.

Without hearing a single word Xander has been saying to me for the last minute, I stare blankly at the fogged windshield and whisper. “My best friend was just found dead in the woods.”

Xander pauses, his hands tightening on the steering wheel as he glances at me with wide eyes.

“What? Who... who was your best friend?”

“Blaire Middleton,” I choke out, the reality of the words ripping my heart out of my chest.

Xander repeats her name under his breath. “Blaire Middleton…”

The specific, strange way he says her name causes me to snap out of my trance and turn my head to look at him.

Xander’s face has gone ghostly pale. His mouth falls slightly open, and his eyes fill with pure, unadulterated horror as he stares at the road ahead.